Arts Therapy to Support Emotional Health and Well Being

by Joanne Deaker @reconnectme_nz

Unlike art simply as a pleasant therapeutic process (what I call art as therapy), arts therapy goes deep into the psyche and can intentionally be used to access our inner knowing.
 
It does this through the medium of our body, maybe as...

• movement of the whole body
• movement of our hand as it draws a line on paper or sculpts a form in sand
• a deep sound we might utter
• an image or a colour we might choose that just feels right within our body (even if it makes little sense to our head)
• a smell that might evoke a memory

​Arts therapy goes beyond words… although it will also ultimately use some words, as a medium to help understand or make sense of what is created.
 
Arts therapy can also be used to help us understand more deeply about why we might be feeling something. To help us find the message in an emotion.

Here's an example of how arts therapy can be used in this way...

1. Recall a recent frustration (just a frustration and NOT full on anger).
2. Express the frustration as a non-verbal sound… maybe some kind of grunt or sigh.
3. Repeat a a couple of times and then consider where in your body you felt that sound. Where did it resonate?
4. With that in mind repeat feeling into the frustration and making the sound.
5. Find yourself a piece of paper and some coloured drawing materials… my preference is oil pastels, but anything will do… and if you don’t have colours, a pencil or pen will also suffice.  Start by drawing the outline of a body on it (a gingerbread man shape or a stick figure is fine). Now put some marks that relate to where in your body you felt that sound. Do the marks have a colour (or colours)? See if the marks can describe/symbolize the feeling of the sound. (Note marks can even be outside the body). Do the marks have a movement? if so draw that.
6. Now ask yourself the following… ‘If the marks could say something what would they say?’ See if you can write a sentence or even just some words. Don’t think on it, just do it. There is not right or wrong.
7. Now consider how you feel. Is that frustration still there or is it gone? Do your words hold any sort of message to you? (maybe even a surprise?)

 
When you work with me, we would extend, expand and explore this further using a range of processes (the one described above is only one of many we might use).  This is balanced with our working together to resource you so we can pull back when it becomes too much. Your care is of prime importance and emotional work does take work. So a big part of my supporting you through arts therapy is in resourcing you so you can cope and bring yourself back up when needed. Over time as you learn to gently be with, and work through your emotions, the discomfort around them lessens and we open ourselves up more and more to the higher, better feeling emotions such as peace and joy. We begin to see the world again in a range of colours rather than shades of gray.
 
Wishing you well
​x Joanne